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Obama steps back from sweeping nuclear security goal
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/06/15/17471/obama-steps-back-sweeping-nuclear-security-goal
Obama steps back from sweeping nuclear security goal
The administration looks for incremental gains in locking up nuclear explosives, rejecting demands by outsiders for a major new international agreement to prevent nuclear terrorism
By Douglas Birch, R. Jeffrey Smith, June 15, 2015
As President Obama prepares for the last of the global summits he organized to lock down or eliminate nuclear explosive materials around the globe, his aides are hoping for modest achievements rather than pressing for broad new measures to help protect the world from a nuclear terror attack, according to current and former administration officials.
Obama set a high bar five months after his election when he said that nuclear armed terrorism was “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security” and promised that he would lead an effort to lock down all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. But more than six years later, there is a consensus inside and outside the government that such a sweeping achievement remains out of reach.
Over the course of his presidency, Obama has scaled back his goals in this area and settled for what a senior White House official publicly described in 2012 as “the incremental nature of success," rather than throwing his full weight behind the creation of global security standards for nuclear materials that independent experts say could have a more lasting and significant impact.
<snip>
The report’s depiction of the threat as an urgent problem has found resonance in a coalition of more than 80 arms control, academic, and philanthropic organizations known as the Fissile Materials Working Group. It plans to release a 16-page report Tuesday proposing what it calls “bold, new actions” to advance nuclear security at the final summit beyond what the Obama administration is presently considering, including creating a pathway toward "universal, mandatory...standards."
The group’s membership spans the political spectrum, and includes the Arms Control Association, the Cato Institute, the Federation of American Scientists, the Stimson Center, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as independent groups in Russia, India, Denmark and elsewhere. One of its members, the Stanley Foundation, has financially supported foreign travel by staff at the Center for Public Integrity. The working group has already given copies of its report to diplomats heading for a preparatory conference scheduled to be held in Lithuania the week of June 28.
<snip>
Obama steps back from sweeping nuclear security goal
The administration looks for incremental gains in locking up nuclear explosives, rejecting demands by outsiders for a major new international agreement to prevent nuclear terrorism
By Douglas Birch, R. Jeffrey Smith, June 15, 2015
As President Obama prepares for the last of the global summits he organized to lock down or eliminate nuclear explosive materials around the globe, his aides are hoping for modest achievements rather than pressing for broad new measures to help protect the world from a nuclear terror attack, according to current and former administration officials.
Obama set a high bar five months after his election when he said that nuclear armed terrorism was “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security” and promised that he would lead an effort to lock down all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. But more than six years later, there is a consensus inside and outside the government that such a sweeping achievement remains out of reach.
Over the course of his presidency, Obama has scaled back his goals in this area and settled for what a senior White House official publicly described in 2012 as “the incremental nature of success," rather than throwing his full weight behind the creation of global security standards for nuclear materials that independent experts say could have a more lasting and significant impact.
<snip>
The report’s depiction of the threat as an urgent problem has found resonance in a coalition of more than 80 arms control, academic, and philanthropic organizations known as the Fissile Materials Working Group. It plans to release a 16-page report Tuesday proposing what it calls “bold, new actions” to advance nuclear security at the final summit beyond what the Obama administration is presently considering, including creating a pathway toward "universal, mandatory...standards."
The group’s membership spans the political spectrum, and includes the Arms Control Association, the Cato Institute, the Federation of American Scientists, the Stimson Center, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as independent groups in Russia, India, Denmark and elsewhere. One of its members, the Stanley Foundation, has financially supported foreign travel by staff at the Center for Public Integrity. The working group has already given copies of its report to diplomats heading for a preparatory conference scheduled to be held in Lithuania the week of June 28.
<snip>
